Let’s have some sunshine……….

Hi all,

I have no doubt that I suffer from, what’s  it called?, seasonal affective disorder, I think they call it – and I have to say I am getting tired of the cold and damp weather and the dark early mornings which often see me catching trains in cold miserable stations to get to the next meeting. There are some rays of sunshine seeping through though. It’s not quite as dark any more at the end of the day, and there is certainly a warm glow in London as the Olympics and Paralympics get ever closer. As I write this there are now just 201 days to go to the Paralympic opening ceremony. Along with Kevin our Chairman I attended the LOCOG update this week, the last one to NGBs before the games, and I really got a sense that we are now on the final lap. For Head Coach Tom and the team this is both exciting but a concern as the squad has been suffering a spate of illnesses over the past few weeks and this has limited the sort of training that has been possible. Tom will be hoping to try to catch this up quickly as there are some key performance opportunities on the near horizon. Poland join us at the end of the month for some joint training and competition at Stoke and the Test Event is in mid April. For those of you who have asked for tickets for this, LOCOG have assured me that they will be able to confirm allocations in the next week. I hope by now that some of you will have met Kirsty Clarke who has joined us in the Head of Operations role and she is now trying to get around to clubs as well as putting the finishing touches to the Super Series tournament which kicks off in Kent on 17 March. Thanks to all of you who through your DMG representative voted for our Paralympic torchbearer. I now have our nomination which has to be passed to the BPA but I hope very much to be able to announce the result soon. What I can confirm is that I am confident the person will be a popular choice and I was particularly pleased with the result as it recognises someone who has done a great deal for our sport – another ray of sunshine to cheer me up!!! Bye for now.

David

2012 has arrived….238 days to go…..

So 2012 has arrived and we begin the final quarter countdown to our home Paralympics with the opening ceremony just 238 days away as I blog this. I hope you all had a great Christmas and that 2012 arrived in style. For me it was party time in my Cornish village and a traditional swim with villagers in the sea on Christmas morning, followed by plenty of fine port to warm up! My 3 year old twins kept me pretty busy with all of their new toys and I have managed to have some good workouts at my local club so I am feeling pretty good to go again. We have continued to get some fine coverage over the Christmas period and in particular  you may have seen the C4 spot we got  where I was interviewed about funding and where there was some great footage of the GB Cup in Cardiff. Again wheelchair rugby was singled out as the game to watch not that there are any spare tickets for the Paralympics as they are all sold out. On that subject if you do have tickets you don’t want then remember that it is a criminal offence to resale tickets on the open market but you can resale through LOCOG between 6 January and 3 February go to www.tickets.london2012.com for details. There will be a lot to communicate over the coming weeks so do keep your eye on my blog and on the website in general so that you don’t miss out. In the next few days we welcome Kirsty Clarke into the team as Head Operations and we restart squad training at Stoke on 17 Jan. Don’t forget to vote for your torch carrier – see home page of website. The successful person will be selected by the DMG on 7 February so make sure you get your voice heard. I will also be giving out news about how you can get to see the Test Event in April. So have a great start to 2012 and stay in touch – add any comment to my blog or email me and use your DMG rep.

Here’s to a very successful 2012

David

 

Looking forward to Christmas & 2012

I am at the stage I usually am this time of year with a week to go, no presents bought yet and the cards still to write. I got back last night having being away all week on GBWR business to find my now three year old twins really excited by the thought of presents and chocolate which is pretty much all they understand at the moment about Christmas. I found myself getting similarly excited this week when with Patty Cornelius I visited LOCOG to go through some of the details for our Test Event between 17-19 March and the Paralympics itself. With 247 days to go before the start of the Paralympics, I feel a bit like my twins do about Christmas – excited but still not really sure what 2012 will really be like other than knowing it will be something incredibly special. Do read my newsletter on the web as it will tell you more about the Test Event and the special opportunities for members, friends and families to attend. We have also just been given the news that there will be an opportunity for one person from our sport – a volunteer, supporter, athlete or whoever to carry the Paralympic torch on a leg of its journey – again my newsletter will give details of how you can help choose who gets that honour. Another reason I am looking forward to 2012 is that we will see the arrival of Kirsty Clarke, our new Head of Operations. Kirsty was selected after a highly competitive search for a replacement for James Thomas. We had over 60 applicants and she came through a strong field and is an impressive lady as you will see. She will be out to the clubs very early in the new year and with her Sport England and volunteer background she is going to be a huge asset to us so please make her feel welcome as part of our family. Kirsty will also bring some much needed extra help to our small management team as the last few months have been a bit of a struggle as we have had a huge amount to do to cover the Head of Operations role and do our own jobs. I would like to thank Tom, Patty, Bev Everton, Lee Stutely and Amanda Thomas in particular who have all helped by taking on increased responsibilities. The new year is going to be especially demanding for the management team because we are now working on our submissions to UK Sport and Sport England for the 2013-2017 funding round. It is critical that we spend time and thought on this process as we rely on this core funding to deliver the sport and to continue our ambitious plan to provide the best enjoyable opportunities for individuals to take part in the sport at whatever level they wish to. Enough for now – I will come back to you early in the new year but at this point wish you and your loved ones a very happy Christmas. Stay safe, have fun and get ready for an amazing year ahead…….David

It’s Silver for GB

Well here I am in Notwill Switzerland where a couple of hours ago I watched with pride as the GB players had their silver medals presented at the awards ceremony. It has been a tough tournament – just what we have needed at this stage of our paralympic preparation – and I think we can be proud that our new look team is really starting to shape up. We lost to Sweden in the final 42-49 and that after another tough game yesterday which saw us defeat Belgium the previous European Champions by a single point. What has been interesting to see is just how much the standard of rugby in Europe has improved since the last championships in 2009. This has to be good for all of us as we need high quality opposition close to home if we are to compete with the best in the world. We would not be sportsmen if we were not disappointed about losing in the final – but I think we can take many positives from our performances. The head coach got to run his exciting new lines which will help him as he continues to build and find the right combinations to challenge in 2012; and our players new to this level of rugby got to taste what it is like to play under real pressure – this sort of experience is invaluable and you only get it by playing in the big games. So I go to bed now thinking of the positives and especially happy with the thought that we have turned a corner over the last few months – some big wins in the GB Cup, some big wins here and of course not forgetting those games against Canada in Leeds where again we showed just how far we have come. Tom and his staff have done well and we should all be optimistic about where we are at this stage. Yes there is still lots to do but we are moving rapidly in the right direction and with Aaron, Myles, Dave and Kylie, we are not only preparing for 2012 but laying the foundations for 2016 and beyond. Well done Tom, Staff and the European Silver medalists – good night all – home tomorrow!

Let the battles begin…..

Firstly…I am sorry…I have taken two hits lately about my blog. The first, the most hurtful, came from a close former naval colleague of mine, unusually supported by his wife, who said my blogs were crap! He told me they sounded more like corporate messages than blogs and that blogs were supposed to be more laid back than that! The second hit was from James T who gave me a rocket for not blogging since March. So here I am with a new blog in the most relaxed style a guy like me can do.!

Well first, I hope like me you felt that the domestic season ended on a high with the nationals. Most people I have talked to have said that the Coloplast Super Series and the nationals have been great this year. I have had positive comments about the venues and the formats so hopefully we can build on this for next year. The Annual Dinner also went well but I am wondering if there is the stomach to make the dinner even less formal (like my new blog!) maybe the same format for awards but perhaps some music or similar? Let me know in a blog or through the DMG how you would like to see the dinner next year. While you have all being playing, I have had a busy few weeks and I would like to tell you a little bit about some of that. First I went to Leicester to meet up with Matt Hampson. Most of you will have heard of Matt – and if any of you read the Sunday Times you will see that last week his book started to be serialised in the Review pages. Matt broke his neck playing rugby for England in the Academy side. Regrettably he is now paralysed from the neck down and so is not even able to play our game. Matt has his own foundation – take a look at www.matthampsonfoundation.org and he is keen to team up with us and for us to do some things together. He is also supported by Leicester rugby club and the England team and so we are looking at opportunities for us all to come together. Matt is also keen to offer some sort of bursary to a development player so lots to think about there. Matt will be at the GB Cup on 7th September and is keen to meet as many players  as possible and to get to know us all. He already knows Steve Brown as they spent some time together in Stoke M. I have also been busy interviewing for a new Membership Secretary to take over from Sharan and am pleased to tell you that Daniel Hook started at Twickenham this week and I am sure he will be in touch with you all soon. This week I also had a meeting with the Chief Executive of Sport England to talk about our plans for development and to put across our case for a decent level of funding when the new 4 year round starts. I will be working hard over the next few months to get our funding bid put together. The new funding runs from 2013-2017 and it is important that we get a slice of that cake if we are to continue our upward trend.

Now you will have noted the title of this blog…….the international battles really do start now. This weekend the team have a training/play opportunity with Canada who are over to test their 2012 training venue. We then move into Norfolk to prepare for the GB Cup – this promises to be a great event and will be fantastic prep for the Europeans at the end of September. Try to get to Cardiff for the Cup – 6-8 September and my next blog will give more details about that. So that’s it for now ……..was that better??    David

Lots happening…….

Hi everyone, James Thomas has just given me a hard time for failing to blog for ages and having looked at the date of my last blog it’s a fair cop! Perhaps I will start by talking about James and his new role. Having now been the CEO for about 16 months I have  a much better idea of the sport, its people and the challenges we face. I still learn something new every day and like Tom and James I am committed to providing you with the best service I can to ensure our sport grows and remains enjoyable. To this end we want to see a much greater link between the game at club level and Team GB.  We recognise that unless we can recruit more players, grow healthy clubs and provide enjoyable domestic competition, we will never be able to keep players interested and we will never have international teams who can challenge for gold. So I have now asked James to take on a different role as Head of Operations. In this role he will have oversight of delivery of the whole sport plan – from recruitment through to clubs and competitions and onwards into Team GB where he will have a wide ranging perfomance management role. He will continue to work closely with Tom who will now be able to focus much more intensely on his key role which is to find and nurture talent and then create world beating teams – no pressure there then Tom!  In addition Tom will become more involved with clubs and in particular will provide Coach Development days. This new approach many of you will have seen at the Nottingham Regional Development Day in February which James organised. Here we had a morning of workshops for officials and coaches followed by an afternoon of rugby with a number of Team GB players also taking part. Our recruitment drive has also started and we have visited the Royal Marines Rehabilitation Unit in Plymouth and also the spinal unit at Salisbury. In addition we supported Pirates to deliver a recruitment/taster session in Cardiff for 25 injured servicemen. While all of this is going on, preparations are under way for the first of the Coloplast Super Series events which will be at Medway Park in Kent on 19/20 March so we are looking forward to a well attended event. I also hope that you are able to catch up with the weekly blog coming in from Florida where we have 5 of our development  players taking part in an international training camp. So lots and lots going on…………….. look forward to seeing you in Kent………..David

Here’s to 2011!

I hope like me you enjoyed the Powerplay in Liverpool – and if you didn’t go you missed a treat! As we as some great play opportunities for the 40 or so who turned up, there was some excellent kit given away, all with our new logo and branding, and a great social event to follow with some good prizes – none of which I won! Actually it was a great way to end the playing year and it was followed by some very good news. First we heard that we have been successful with funding support from the BOOST charity which will help our Ambassador programme, then we heard that the ‘Get Kids Going’ charity will partner us for the build up to 2012, and then this was followed by the news that we have been successful in our bid for funding from the Wooden Spoon charity to develop the schools programme I have mentioned before – more of that in the new year. All of this is great news and the result of pretty hard work from the management team so thanks to James, Richard and Tom. This funding will really help us deliver our long term aim of getting new players and giving more support to clubs. I am already pretty excited about the start of 2011. On 19 January we launch the Ambassador programme which aims to target new players. We are starting this in the Royal Marines rehabilitation unit in Plymouth looking to see if there are potential players or marines who are just keen to get involved with the game. At the end of the month we are sending some of Team 2012 to Florida for training which marks the start of the Team 2012 year. Then we have a really exciting new events programme which will certainly provide many more playing opportunities for all of you – the Super Series, Regional Development Days, Low Point Tournament, Powerplay  and National Championships are all there to take part in so check out the website for details. To help clubs who need a bit more funding to get things going the newly launched Club Support Fund has gone live and already some clubs have been successful with their applications. So here’s to 2011! Meanwhile have a fun Christmas and we look forward to seeing you in 2011.

David